Man in the White Suit, The (1951)

Ealing Studios/ General Film Distributors
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Starring: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker

Continuing its postwar success of comedies about an everyman against the establishment sees Ealing’s 1951 picture The Man in the White Suit featuring once again a talented performance of Alec Guinness. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick this film takes audiences on a journey that studies the faults of the conservativism of capitalism when progress is treated as a threat because it would change the status quo. A comedic satire the feature proves to have a bit of thought to it within a story that was crafted to entertain in a classic British style.

 

The Man in the White Suit is a British comedy about a young chemist’s invention to benefit humanity delivers him the ire an entire industry that feels threatened by it. Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) is quiet yet determined chemist that ruses his way into being a researcher at a textile company where he secretly develops a fiber that never breaks or wears while being able to repel all forms of dirt. With hope that it will revolutionize all fabrics Stratton fashions a suit out of his new material to showcase it which is a pristine, iridescent white due to the nuclear components and inability to be dyed. Initial excitement for the revolutionary product turns sour as factory laborers realize the lack of continued product will eliminate their jobs while executives comprehend that destruction of the industry with a lack of need for new fabrics. While laborers threaten with violence and executives looks to acquire and destroy his new formula Stratton is on the run for his life and his hope for humanity, only to have it literally fall apart. The suit dissolves off Stratton as the fiber breaks down on its own leaving Stratton with nothing, but the hope to continue the perfect his formula.

 

What is perhaps packaged at first as a light science fiction film, this feature travels down the realm of satirical comedy to deliver a story about progress and the tendency to repel it when it changes things too much, despite its positives. Alec Guinness, as he always has, produces a perfect everyman performance as the timid, but determined gifted mind that looks to bring to the world a salvation of a product everyone could use. What the picture does well is hold up a mirror to a capitalistic society and its shortcomings while never fully demonizing it.

 

Alexander Mackendrick guides the picture during a period when the world was evolving into the atomic age with a feature that is simple by cinematic standards. It only hints a science fiction nature with Stratton’s chemistry experiments, which is highlighted by the ear grabbing sound effects of bubbling and synthesized noises. The titular white suit worn by Alec Guinness plays well to the black and white imagery of the celluloid, accentuated by a reflective material that shines for the camera as it is pinspotted during filming.

 

 Apart from the white suit the only real star of the picture is that of Alec Guinness, who has been established as a go-to character actor of Ealing Studios. He captures the simple middle class British common man while being able to take on sillier attributes when the correct time calls for it. His character of Stratton plays similar to his role in The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) earlier in the year, but lacking the evil intent as Stratton is wishing to create something to better everyone and not just himself.

 

The remainder of the cast plays secondary to Guinness as a series of character actors or supporting players that play off of Guinness. Joan Greenwood appears as Stratton’s greatest sympathizers as the daughter of the textile factory owner, Daphne. Her father, portrayed by Cecil Parker, with his rigidly superior-sounding voice is perhaps the greatest villain of the picture along with a fellow executive played by Michael Gough as they wish to stop the miracle fabric from ever being and diminishing the supply and demand of their entire industry.

 

It is not just the wealth that are made out to be the detractors of Stratton as the factory laborers are also against Stratton and his invention. They too feel threatened by the fabric that will only need to be manufactured once, threatening an entire labor force. Actress Hope Vida portrays the heart of this threatening side opposed to Stratton as a factory friend, Bertha, who turns on him, only to comes to pity him in the end when he is left with nothing.

 

When released to audiences in August of 1951 The Man in the White Suit quickly became one of the most popular films of the year to the British market. It eventually found its way to the other side of the ocean to America where it found decent receipts as well as it gained critical notoriety, even an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay for 1952. Through the years The Man in the White Suit has been praised as on of the very best comedies in British cinematic history, finding itself on its share of prestigious top 100 list from the UK.

 

Today’s casual film fan may not be aware of many older British comedies or Alec Guinness’s roles in many of them. The Man in the White Suit is a wonderful example of the sometimes overlook contribution to film. It may not be as effective now albeit with its aged depiction of science, but it does remain to deliver a hearty outlook at the ongoing battle within society over conservative livelihood versus the scientific progression. Much of this idea would be a running theme that peppered the 1950s in cinema and other forms of storytelling. Today the film remains a wonderful capsule into the history of man’s struggle with achievements and hostilities with progress.